Aided by new funds from Congress, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is extending new antiviral treatments to all veterans with hepatitis C treated within its sprawling health care system—regardless of the stage of their illness and whether they contracted these infections during military service.

The move puts the VA at the forefront of combatting the nation’s deadliest infectious disease, which kills more people in the United States than HIV, tuberculosis, pneumoccocal disease, and dozens of other infectious conditions combined, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (http://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2016/p0504-hepc-mortality.html).